Various types of protective garments have been employed to protect the clothes of a wearer from unintentional soiling. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,328,807 issued July 4, 1967 to K. Strauss discloses a protective bib which includes a catcher pocket at the bottom end thereof. Other patents which show protective bibs with catcher pockets are U.S. Pat. No. 3,329,969 issued July 11, 1967 to J. Farber, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 3,332,547 issued July 25, 1967 to C. Rowe, et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 3,416,157 issued Dec. 17, 1968 to H. Marder, et al.
The catcher pockets employed with conventional protective bibs have not readily remained open. As a result, various bib configurations have been developed to help hold the bib pocket open. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,995,321 issued Dec. 7, 1976 to S. Johnson discloses a bib which includes adhesive tabs designed to attach the front lip of the pocket to the edge of a table and thereby hold the bib pocket open. Other bib designs have employed a depending apron which is connected to the front lip of the bib pocket and which is configured to gravitationally open the pocket and hold it open. For example, see U.S. Pat. No. 4,495,658 issued Jan. 29, 1965 to D. Moret, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,445,231 issued May 1, 1984 to J. Noel; U.S. Pat. No. 4,441,212 issued Apr. 10, 1984 to N. Ahr, et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,416,025 issued Nov. 22, 1983 to D. Moret, et al.
Bib configurations have also employed side gusset members to help hold the bib pocket open. For example, see British Pat. No. 1,463,863 published Feb. 9, 1977 with K. Andersson as the listed inventor; and U.S. Pat. No. 2,367,383 issued Jan. 16, 1945 to J. Tiscornia.
Conventional protective bib garments, such as those described above, have not been completely satisfactory. The conventional bibs have required complex manufacturing techniques and have not provided a sufficiently reliable and convenient mechanism for holding the catcher pocket open. In addition, the bib configurations which attach a part of the bib to a piece of furniture can undesirably limit the movement of the wearer and can put excessive stresses on the bib structure.